One Shelf at a Time: Photo Storage

Photo storage may not technically fit on a shelf when you are dealing with digital images. However, just like something tangible, it can produce clutter. It's so easy to have a ton of photos. You might forget parts of the story or which ones you printed. To help myself out a bit, I have devised a photo captioning and storage system.

I sort my photos by year and then have photos arranged by month. I was inspired by Noell Hyman's suggestion to journal in your metadata. This means I change the names of the photos, sometimes even the folders that contain them. and I add journaling where the name would be. No more forgetting stories, where the event occurred or snippets of things people said.

Not every single photos may receive a caption. There is enough there to document my memories and thoughts about the events. Doing this also makes me feel a little better about not getting to every photo right away. At the very least, the stories have been documented.



I also add the word " scrapped" to the name of the photo or to the folder once a layout has been completed. It helps to keep me from reprinting a photo multiple times. Not that there is anything wrong with scrapping a photo more than once. It just helps me to keep track.

I do make sure to delete any bad photos. I take so many photos every day. Not all of them come out and there is no sense in keeping the blurry ones( unless they document a special story). This sort of record keeping system also saves me time when I scrapbook. I have an idea of the journaling that goes with the photos before I ever start the layout.

Are all of my photos documented like this? No. I started using this system last year. I do go back and change some of my older photos. I know that the task would be overwhelming to take on all at once. So little by little, I have implemented the new system. I love how it works for me and how it streamlines my process.

The storage of your digital photos is important. Keeping it organized will help you save time as you scrapbook. It will also help you from cluttering your computer. Make it a habit to add notes to your digital photos every time you download a batch. You just might find that it makes your memory keeping a little easier for you.

Related articles

• Scrapbook Page Starters: Arrange Photos and Elements on a Shelf
• Ideas for Scrapbook Pages with 8 Photos
• Go To Designs: The Band
• LOAD213: Squeak Purr